Single stocks versus indexes as an underlying asset

While most retail structured products use mainstream indexes as reference assets - usually equity indexes but also broad measures of other asset classes - plenty of products are linked to one or more individual stocks.

In many markets, listed options on a significant number of shares tend to be actively traded. This is true in the UK, and even more so in places with a culture of active equity trading, such as Germany, Hong Kong, Switzerland and the US. Some of these markets also feature a large